Like Krazy

"When will I ever need this?" To a teacher, it's like a slap in the face. But not the refreshing wake up call kind. The kind that can be interpreted as "What you have committed your life to and have a passion for seems totally meaningless." The word "seems" is my interpretation, on purpose, because they really mean "is totally meaningless" but I refuse to take it that way. I have used many responses in the past but since this is a family blog I will not repeat them here. I teach at an all male high school so what I have used recently has developed from their possible interest in sports. It begins with a question (don't most interesting things?): Do you play a sport? "Yes. I play ______." (If they say no, I ask if they play an instrument and change the questioning accordingly) Excellent! Are you preparing for a game soon? "Yes. We are getting ready to play _______." Oh my, they are pretty good. Have anything spec...

Apparently, I can't even lead a horse to water, much less make it drink. I held a tech session recently at school to introduce interested colleagues to free and ongoing professional development opportunities. The plan: show them several ways to learn online (Future of Education interview series (www.futureofeducation.com) and Learn Central webinars) and then show and have them sign up for Twitter and have it culminate in participation in a Tuesday edchat session. It was going to be great to show them immediately how to learn from others all over the world. One person showed. The week before I held a session on organization and document sharing. Two showed for that. I should have quit while I was ahead. Of course, it was in the middle of summer and I only gave them a few days notice so that could have been a big factor. Maybe the topics were not that exciting, interesting or maybe I used terms that had no appeal on their own. But I had a theory that I thought would make this...

The more I heard about the "flipped" classroom model, the better it sounded - introduce students to a topic at home and then work through and learn the process/content in class with the teacher. And then I did the (warning, I'm about to go very cryptic with the next reference) "Hey ... HEY!" double-take from classic 1940's films like "It's a Wonderful Life" because I think my classroom has always been flipped (if I understand it correctly). My English students do a lot of reading during the course of the year and almost all of it is done at home. They do the assigned reading and we discuss it the following day (usually after a quick "did you do the reading?" quiz at the beginning of class). The discussions usually include reading of passages from the text out loud, which is an important part of the process to understanding and appreciating literature. Maybe it is because I have always done things in this manner and therefore, I am a...

As part of ISTE11, on June 27 some #EngChat participants met upstairs at a pub and participated in the weekly discussion together. Awkward. I am not gonna lie. It felt awkward sitting upstairs in a pub with about 15 others, laptops out and open, participating almost silently in a virtual chat. The quiet was purposeful. We were reflecting on reflecting and writing about it. But we weren't just online with each other (which would have added strange and unusual to the awkwardness). We were chatting and writing and sharing with others from all over the world. We would have been quiet at home doing the same thing but we were in a social gathering place meant to foster face to face discussion. Did this make a difference? As a matter of fact, all of us had done the same type of chatting weekly on #engchat and various other Twitter chats throughout the week. But this time some of us were physically together for the process and it just felt strange.  Temporarily. The...

Unfortunately, I have been hearing a lot of negative conversation about Khan Academy recently. It does not seem right to put down someone who has done so much to help others in an extremely proficient way. There are so many great uses for what he (and others) have created. If not at the center of a flipped classroom model, the videos can be used as reference by students who may not have completely understood a topic initially. In this example, Khan becomes the classic textbook example on steroids. My daughter occasionally watched a Khan video this past year to help her with a calculus topic. It must have been useful because she recommended the site to friends. One of the tasks of students (and teachers) in the near future will be to keep track of the virtual teachers who may provide them the best outside help. It would be great to have a site similar to Netflix for learning, with suggestions and recommendations based on your "favorite" virtual teachers. Along with teachers,...

It occurred to me the other day that my 20 years of teaching has led to 20 summers of to do lists, big plans, and usually stress as the days ticked away and the list did not get much smaller. That experience has given me a little insight and I have made some changes to my approach to the summer. The problem the first several years (16 or so!?) was that I just planned a little too big - organize the house, figure out a method to avoid large stacks of essays to grade, raise the Titanic, etc. The chance of getting any of these items complete during the summer was the same, zero. There were MANY items like this on my list and I was always frustrated by the time the school year rolled around again because I was still behind on my tasks! I heard a saying years ago that went something like - if you expect nothing, you have all things. Now that is a mantra I can head into summer with! Unfortunately (and quite reasonably), my wife did not quite get as excited about that quote as I did. I nee...

"So, what's the answer?" Cringe. The question came from a student the other day after a long discussion about the reason a character was so enraged. I was tempted to say that the character had been discussing an important topic with others and one of them had not been paying attention and so he was enraged.  But I have been told that sarcasm does not work with boys. Dang. It's a fair question, sometimes. It's not easy to follow a discussion with many students providing input and insight. After a while they figure out who has something to say that has a high percentage of being insightful.             For others, the class dialogue may drag on and after several minutes they zone out. Once they "come back" they are ready to move on. They want the Spark Notes version (or Reader's Digest or Cliff Notes, depending on your generation). photo © 2007 Kenneth Lu | more info (via: Wylio ) It’s not like it is the first time anyone h...